Super Mario 64 went by without pressing the A button to jump - this was considered absolutely impossible

Super Mario 64 was completed for the first time without pressing the A button. This is a new world record that was previously considered impossible. To fully understand the monumental achievement, it is worth knowing that the A button in Super Mario 64 is used for jumping, making it one of the most important elements of the platformer. The record was achieved without any modifications, relying entirely on creative use of game mechanics, bugs, and exploits discovered over many years since the release of Super Mario 64 in 1996.

The Super Mario 64 A Button Challenge (ABC) has an incredibly complex history that dates back to the early 2000s, several years after the game's release. Super Mario 64 geeks competed to beat the classic platformer using the A button as little as possible - a longtime assumption claims that it is simply impossible to complete the game without pressing A at all.

Streamer Twitch Marbler managed to complete the game without pressing the A button once after an exhausting 86-hour playthrough. The record was achieved without modifying the version of the game for the Wii virtual console, which is perhaps the only confirmed version where this is possible. Eight months ago, Marbler was able to beat the game by pressing A only twice, and then he said that one A could be saved by playing the Wii Virtual Console version, although the final completion will require "some really absurd move."

This was achieved thanks to decades of effort and accumulated experience of the speedrunning community. Again, it is difficult to overstate the difficulty of this achievement, not only because it took more than 20 years to accomplish, but also due to the complexity of the game.

Source: GamesRadar